UNFPA to partner Government ...

..to address health, other disasters

Wa, Jan. 21, GNA- The United Nations Funds for Population Activities (UNFPA) has drawn up a programme of action to support the government of Ghana to address problems of reproductive health and to find long-term solutions to eminent disasters.

Already, the UNFPA in 2006 embarked on the fifth Country Programme of Assistance (CPA), which would end in 2010 and aimed at addressing reproductive health issues such as Family Planning, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases and other population and gender issues in the country. Mr. Makane Kane, a UNFPA representative stated these at Wa on Monday during a day's Advocacy meeting with key stakeholders on reproductive health and emergency response.

The meeting, which attracted about 40 participants from the Ghana Health Service, District Assemblies, National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO) and other stakeholders, among other things, brainstormed and suggested means by which emergency situations could be controlled and contained in future.

Mr. Kane said women and children were vulnerable in times of both natural and man-made disasters, hence the desire of UNFPA to protect them by coming out with an elaborate support for Family Planning, Sexual abuse and other practices that undermined their growth and development. The UNFPA representative said his outfit had supplied the region with reproductive health kits and essential drugs to support flood victims and address adverse situations that could result from the floods and other disasters the three Northern regions experienced last year. Mr. George Hikah Benson, Upper West Regional Minister, said flood disasters that the three Northern regions experienced last year did not only claim lives and property, but was also likely to create food deficit in the country as the floods affected crops such as yam, millet, sorghum, beans and groundnuts, which are mostly cultivated in the affected areas.

He commended the UNFPA and UNICEF for their tremendous contributions towards the flood victims in the region and gave the assurance that their supplies would be judiciously managed for the livelihood of the victims.

He however, warned people against building in flood prone areas as such practices could pose serious threats to their lives in times of disasters such as floods, fire outbreaks and other natural and man-made calamities Dr. Erasmus Agongo, Upper West Regional Director of Health Service, who gave an overview of the flood disasters in the region, said lack of transport to deliver relief items, limited expertise on disaster issues and limited relief items accounted for the heavy toll that it had on the people in the region. He appealed for the constitution of a standing disaster committee that would draw up multi-sectoral plans to sensitize communities on eminent disasters, and coordinate their activities for support in an event of any outbreak.